


it's only love

by sclerant (rufusrant)



Series: the hot mess, in between [1]
Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkwardness, Christmas, Fluff, M/M, Modern AU, and its Christmas themed., did i mention they're both idiots, tl;dr awkward first movie date, well 5 days before Christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21921517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rufusrant/pseuds/sclerant
Summary: George and Ringo go to the movies, and then some.
Relationships: George Harrison/Ringo Starr, John Lennon/Paul McCartney (mentioned)
Series: the hot mess, in between [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1578769
Comments: 12
Kudos: 31





	it's only love

**Author's Note:**

> here's the starrison date that was in the beginning of [silent night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17069240/chapters/40137050) because my [series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1188245)is currently in february and i just want more starrison xmas content. 
> 
> this isn't a deleted scene, it happened while john was setting the kitchen on fire. i thought it would be nicer, better-organised on its own. (sorry mclen. i love you too.)

5 days before Christmas 

For some unknown reason it still isn't snowing in London. George doesn't mind. A part of him's far too keyed up to keep an eye on the road and the other is rife with the fact that Christmas' come early— because a date. With _Ringo._

"Now?" John pouts. 

"Yeah," says Ringo. "I booked it an' all—"

" 'm makin' cookies! Can't ya wait?" 

"Hey, we're comin' back."

"They're almost done," John pleads, hands clasped. He casts a quick look at the oven. "I _think."_

"You think?" George laughs. "There's somethin' called a timer."

"I _do_ got a timer." John slams his phone on the counter. An alarm's scheduled to go off in 14 minutes. "Don't they, like, play ads before the movie starts?"

Ringo pats George's shoulder. "We wanna walk."

"Aww, c'mon!"

"Macca'd love a cookie," George suggests. 

"Macca's fuckin' _napping."_

"Now ain't that somethin'! If you get milk you can have a whole feast when he wakes up—"

"Milk. Like, what, Mister and Missus Claus???"

"Yeah."

"God, that’s _lame,"_ says John. "I love it."

George and Ringo exchange a look. George snorts. John waves them off with a flour-filled sweep of his hand. "What??? Scram! Don't you got a movie to catch?"

~

The walk to the cinema is surprisingly longer than he remembers. Cold breeze runs its hands through their hair and George fights to keep it out of his eyes. Ringo pushes his back with both palms and keeps them there, holding his temples like nursing a headache. Streams of people walk past, covered in coats and winding in and out, passing between them both, but they stay close, keeping each other in sight. At the end of the street Ringo turns to George and chuckles almost apologetically, crinkling around the ice-eyes. 

"Reckon we should've gone later," he says. "But I really wanted ta see—"

" 's fine, 's fine."

"Really?" Ringo walks right into a bird pushing a pram. He flusters into a stutter of sorrys, but she doesn’t seem to have even noticed. She continues hissing into her phone. George turns, looks closer, and instead of a baby the pram’s spilling with bags of Harrods’ and Hamleys’. 

“Oh, Lord.”

“That’s…. efficient,” Ringo remarks. He’s gone pink in the nose. 

“How many d’you think she’s got?”

“What?”

“Kiddies. How many kiddies?”

Ringo turns to look again, but she’s vanished into the throng of human traffic. 

“Uh, Hamleys stuff, right? I’m guessin— oh, I dunno, a ton,” he shrugs. “God, I’d kill to go to Hamleys.”

George checks his phone. “Well, we have time.”

“Oh, no,” Ringo laughs. “No, you’d probably hafta drag me out—”

“Wouldn’t mind.”

Ringo looks at him wide-eyed. George looks away then, heat in his neck, but Ringo simply laughs. “Knew I could count on ye.”

~

They don’t go to Hamleys— the cinema Ringo’s booked is apparently one they’ve never been to and impossible to find. _Welcome to London_ , George thinks, as they look up from the Google Map and stare up another wrong signpost. It’s getting dark.

“It broke,” says Ringo.

“No, wait. Try refreshin’ it?”

“Right. Shit. _Shit,_ I’m sorry.”

“What the hell for?”

“I haven’t gone out in _ages._ ‘m rusty,” Ringo chuckles. “Can’t even work a map.” 

“You’re not rusty. I think it’s, um…. Pretty nice,” George tries. “With you an’ all—”

Ringo half-pouts. He stares down and refreshes the map and his poor brow furrows into worry lines that’ve set in his skin too early— but some part of it, a feeling that bursts too fast for him to put words for it, is absolutely marvellous. aND CUTE. LORD HE WAS CUTE. George breathes in a breath of cool, hovers close to the bright pink spot on Ringo’s cheek—

“Oh my God, it worked,” Ringo cheers as the map paints a new path for them to take. George draws back with a start. “Yer a genius.”

“Ta.”

“Ye alright there?”

“ ‘m gear,” he says, willing for snow to fall and cover him up. “Lead the way.”

Ringo chuckles. “You’re in the pink.”

“Of…. of what?”

“In the face, Geo!”

“You too!” George retaliates. Ringo’s hands have vanished, curled away and into his jumper sleeves. “The hell’s yer jacket gone?”

“Uh. The wash?”

“You………... git,” George slips his jacket off. 

“What’re you—”

George wraps Ringo in his jacket quick. Gentle cold pushes and blows the sleeves to the back where they float like black leather streamers, and Ringo peers up at him like something stunned. George draws in a breath, adjusts the collar to distract from the thumping deep down in him. Then he steadies himself, whirls to face the road so fast passing cars feel like whizz rockets.

"What about you??" Ringo asks, incredulous.

"I'll be fine.”

“Are we not goin’ to a cinema???”

" ‘m — well I‘m used to it!”

“Oh,” Ringo wraps himself tighter. His hair’s sticking up, tousled by the wind, and his hand emerges to smooth it down. “You— you’re sure?”

“......yeah.”

“Thanks.” Ringo leans over and kisses George’s cheek.

_“Ohsweetlord.”_

“Beenwantingtadothatfer _ages,”_ Ringo exhales in a laugh that brings the colour back to his face. He wrestles his arms into the jacket sleeves and smiles— toothily, genuinely, and everything is just _gear._

They're lost for a while longer. The department stores and their windows all glow like candles with holes in their wax. The shopping crowd is tamer, but nonetheless still a crowd. Their held hands have to break away by the time they've crossed the road. 

George stops at one window that's been arranged into a Nativity scene. In it Mary and Joseph and the animals are clothed in sweaters and fleeces, pricetags a-dangle, the Wise Men each clutching a gilt box tied with ribbon. Jesus' manger is a white bassinet with a hanging mobile of lambs. Ringo quirks his brow. 

"Christmas is _so_ commercialised," George mutters. 

“Gotta admit ‘s somethin’.”

“Holidays,” George says, stepping closer, “Are supposed to be about…. being there!” He says frustratedly. “Not exactly at home, but, _y’know,_ Ritch?”

“Yeah, I do,” Ringo nods. “ ‘m ringin’ Elsie on Xmas.”

“I knew you would. And ye better.”

“Think she’ll be pleased?”

“With what?”

“Y’know…...” Ringo pauses then, tongue swiping his upper lip. He eyes Joseph’s great shamrock of a sweater. “.......me? Me, uh, being in London an’ all—”

George chuckles. 

“And bein’ in London with _you.”_

“....................fuck.”

“Wh— what?” Ringo giggles nervously. “God, sorry, we better get movin’, eh—”

George steps forward. He cups Ringo’s face and kisses his nose. And _knocks_ his own nose right in between Ringo’s eyes. Fuckin’ _hell_ he’s misaimed more ways than one, but still Ringo pulls himself in, hands gripping his shoulders, stands close enough to feel his breathing. 

“So,” George tries when he’s pulled away, nose warm. “What’s, uh, that movie you wanna see again?”

~

They run into the smack-middle of a packed row, all of whom politely tuck their legs in to let them through. George keeps a death grip on the huge popcorn he’d dashed to buy, and lets it spill only when he’s safe in his seat. On the screen is an ad for some Christmas village at Nordstrom’s or some shit.

“Didn’t miss it!” Ringo whispers, joyous, not noticing popcorn smattered on his jeans.

George and Ringo try to keep up. They eat a handful of popcorn every time the camera closes up on the main star, a boorish-looking bloke with a great big vein fit to burst around his head. He escaped from prison, knocked down a door and broke his chains in one fucking F L E X, all while wielding a stolen pistol. With his abs. The pistol goes off.

“What the fuck,” Ringo laughs.

“Photoshop,” George says snidely. The camera closes up on the vein. His hand brushes the cold of Ringo’s rings as they reach into the bag. 

~

George slips off his shoes and sits cross-legged during the fourth-fifth-sixth sex scene. The seedy motel room onscreen promptly explodes. He snatches up Ringo’s wrist and sends a shower of popcorn on them both. Ringo laughs hysterically.

“What the FUCK,” whispers George. “He’s dead now. He’s DEFINITELY dead now!”

“He’s got his bionic _abs_ though!”

“I— _okay,_ ” George leans over the edge of the armrest. He winds his arm around Ringo the best he can and shoves more popcorn into his mouth. The bloke emerges from the blaze with nothing but mere char marks.

 _“See!”_ Ringo yells. Several people shush him.

~

“Hate it,” Ringo declares the second they’re out the exit.

“Oh,” George chucks the popcorn in the bin. “I thought it was a laugh."

“What! Which part???? The part where he finally died?—”

“Yeah.”

"—and was _resurrected_ with the doctor’s snog?”

“....................................................................... _what?”_

 _“That_ was a good laugh, ” Ringo nods to himself. "But STILL."

George has no idea what the hell he's on about. He runs an uncertain hand through his hair. "Yup."

"Thanks," Ringo says. This.... this was nice. Really gear."

"Thanks? _You're_ the one who asked me out."

"Right," Ringo takes George's hand. "Thanks for agreein'."

And he smiles, wide open— pink tongue, blue eyes. Another laugh, and it hits George with the realisation that _yes, this is_ _everything now._ Simplicity. Every gesture of Ringo's that George's held on to in his hands— and now he holds Ringo, just above the elbows. 

"Y'know," Ringo says, eyes flicking down to register their new position, "I'd worried you'd jus' laugh in my face..."

"I was worried you'd never _ask._ And.... with everythin' that's passed, and.... well..."

"None of that now," Ringo says quickly, moving steadily closer. His hands come up to George's shoulders, all too well. " _This_ is now."

And the ice-eyes flutter closed. Oh. Oh _Lord._ George wonders if he should bend his knees, or tilt Ringo's chin up, and—

A burst of white light. Then a clap of thunder. George and Ringo jump apart and back into the exit wall. It starts to rain. 

"Guessin' ya don't 'ave a brolly," says George.

"I was counting on it snowin'," Ringo hides his hands again. "Which it _should've,_ mind you."

George sighs.

"Hey, d'you think— if we phone the McLennons, they'll come pick us up?"

"....nope."

Ringo takes the jacket off and throws it over George. "Thought so."

"Thanks."

"Mmm."

"Race ya home."

"What—?"

George takes off into the street, leather sleeve streamers flowing behind him. Ringo barks out a laugh, grabs ahold of them after a bit. Puddles soak them through, and through.

“Hey, you two,” John says when they burst into the flat. He kicks the oven door shut.

**Author's Note:**

> and then, [silent night.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17069240/chapters/40137050)
> 
> next, christmas. stay tuned!


End file.
